'That's it!'
The dress ripped and, stumbling, the woman, all but bare-chested, fell across the kerb by the pedestrian crossing. A green double-decker bus pulled up not so far short of where she was sprawling.
Lynn seized one of the woman's arms and yanked her back on to the pavement; leaning over her, a crowd gathering quickly round, she drew out her warrant card and held it high in the air.
'I'm a police officer and I'm placing you under arrest. You do not have to say anything unless you wish to do so, but anything you do say may be given in evidence.'
Someone at the back of the crowd began a slow hand clap and several more jeered; the majority started to drift away. On the ground, without bothering to pull the 86 material of her dress around her, the woman began to laugh.
Seventeen
'Well, I suppose,' Marius said, pausing by the bathroom door, 'you could say that some kind of natural justice has been done. '
The door was open just a crack and he could smell the sweet, urine-like smell of baby powder, the kind with which Dorothy liked to dust herself after her bath. At first, Marius had found it almost repellent, but now he savoured it along with almost everything else the small and delicate ways in which she kept her body sweet to the touch.
'Marius, dear. Hand me my dressing gown, would you?'
Quilted, pink, it slid around her shoulders like satin over old silk.
'Tea's ready,' Marius said.
'And I found some more of those nice little cakes. The butterfly ones with the cream.'
Stepping out into the main room of their small suite, Dorothy Birdwell smiled her thin-mouthed smile.
'Marius, you spoil me. You really do.'
'Not really,' he replied, smiling back. Not nearly enough, he thought.
'Now, dear,' said Dorothy, settling carefully into a high-arched chair.
'I want you to tell me all about what happened in the bookshop. And I don't want you to miss out a single thing.'
'Will you please state your name?' Lynn asked. 'For the record.'
88 'Vivienne Plant.'
'And your address?'
'Hat seven, Ancaster Court, Baimbridge Road, Map- perley.'
Like all of the interview rooms at the police station, this was small and airless and hung over with the unmistakable pall of stale cigarette smoke. Vivienne Plant, with her bright dress and upright posture, the after- image of a sneer on her well-tended middle-class face, looked impressively out of place.
'What is your present occupation?' Lynn asked.
'I'm a lecturer in Women's Studies.'
'Here in the city?'
'In Derby.'
'And are you married or single?'
'Neither.'
'I'm sorry?'
'I have lived with the same partner for seven years; we have a three-year-old child. We are not married. Is that clear enough?'
As a manifesto, Lynn thought
'Ms Plant, you do admit the assault on Cathy Jordan…'
'Demonstration. I was making a demonstration.'
'In relation to Ms Jordan?'
'In relation to her work.'
'You disapprove of her books, then? You don't like them?'
'Which question do you want me to answer?'
No wonder she didn't want a solicitor, Lynn thought, she thinks she is one.
'Aren't they the same thing?' she asked wearily.
'Disapproving and not liking?'
'Yes.'
'I like eating Terry's Chocolate Oranges, sometimes two at a time; I also like popping into McDonald's last thing at night for apple pie. I don't really approve of either.'
Someone walked past along the corridor outside, heavy feet set down slowly and with purpose. Lynn tried not to look at her watch or the clock on the adjacent wall.
'Can you tell me,' she asked, 'why you disapprove of Cathy Jordan's books so strongly? '
'Which version do you want? The fifty-minute lecture or the single-paragraph outline?'
Lynn was reminded of those times she had been lectured by her head teacher at school.
'The outline will be fine.'
'Right. What I object to about her books is that they rely on an almost exclusive portrayal of women as victims, usually victims of violent and degrading assault. Their degradation and pain are in direct proportion to Jordan's profit. She's got rich on women's suffering. She should know better.'
'And your intention was to teach her that lesson?'
'I thought it was appropriate.'
'Covering her With paint?'
Yes, don't you? '
'Then you do admit to throwing paint over Ms Jordan?'
'I thought of it more as pouring, but yes, all right. I do.'
'You assaulted her.'
'Surely that's for the court to decide?'
'You want this to go to court?'
'Of course.'
Oh, God, Lynn thought, spare me from people who know what's right for me better than I do myself. The whole Greenpeace, civil liberties, feminist bunch of them. 'This action, was it carried out on behalf of some group or organisation?'
'Not officially, no. It was an individual act.'
Vivienne Plant's shoulders braced back even further. 'There was no such person.'
'Ms Plant, I was there in the shop. I saw you standing in line with another woman, talking. A woman wearing a black shirt and jeans. You came into the shop together. Approached Ms Jordan together. After the incident, you ran out together. You were not acting on your own.'
'Well, that's going to have to be your word against mine.'
Lynn shook her head. She could have thought of places she would rather be than shut up with Ms Self- righteous, plenty of them.
'All right,' she said, 'we'll come back to this again. '
'Look,' Vivienne said, leaning forward, holding Lynn with her eyes, 'the responsibility for what happened is mine. Okay? But what I did, I did for all women; not just me. '
'All women?' Lynn said.
Of course. '
'I don't think so.'
No? '
Lynn pushed back her chair and got to her feet.
'You didn't do it for me.'
